In some cases in which the maintenance, diagnosis and adjustment of a control object including a motor such as a robot, a servo motor or an NC device in the factory of a user in a remote place is to be carried out, conventionally, an operator on the user side cannot fully take measures. For example, it is necessary to newly adjust a servo gain at such a degree that a different load is applied to the control object in some cases. Since the control object oscillates depending on an adjusting method. The operator on the user side that does not have the know-how of the adjustment carries a risk in some cases. For this reason, an operator on the manufacturer side or an operator in a service center on the manufacturer side which is placed close to the factory of the user is to go to a spot so that a time, a labor and a cost are taken.
Also in the case in which the control object is to be suddenly adjusted, moreover, a time is taken for the operator of the manufacturer to go to a remote place. Consequently, a time loss is generated. Also in the case in which the operator on the manufacturer side is to carry out the maintenance, diagnosis and adjustment on the spot, furthermore, the line of a factory including the control object is to be stopped. Consequently, a productivity is also influenced. Also in the case in which a large-sized measuring device is brought onto the line of the factory, similarly, the line is to be stopped. In some cases, thus, it is hard to bring the measuring device on a physically narrow line.
Referring to such a problem, for example, JP-A-5-35751 has disclosed the conventional art in which a management computer owned by a manufacturer and a machine tool or a terminal device thereof which is owned by a user are connected to each other through a commercial communication line, thereby carrying out the periodic diagnosis, failure diagnosis and failure repair of the machine tool in dialogue as shown in FIG. 11.
In the conventional art, when a request for a periodic diagnosis or a request for a failure diagnosis of a machine tool 913a is given from a machine tool user 91, a program for the periodic diagnosis or the failure diagnosis is transmitted from a management computer 921 including a program for the periodic diagnosis or the failure diagnosis owned by a machine tool manufacturer 92 to the machine tool 913a or a terminal device 911 thereof through a commercial communication line 93.
Information required for the periodic diagnosis or the failure diagnosis which is generated as a result of the execution of the program in the machine tool 913a is fed back to the management computer 921 through the commercial communication line 93 again. The management computer 921 executes a special analysis program based on the information, thereby automatically analyzing the periodic diagnosis or failure diagnosis program of the machine tool 913a and transmitting the result of the analysis through the commercial communication line 93 to the machine tool 913a or the terminal device thereof which is owned by the user.
Moreover, display devices 912 and 922 of the programs for the periodic diagnosis and failure diagnosis are provided on the machine tool 913a or the terminal device thereof which is owned by the user 91 and the management computer 921 owned by the manufacturer 92, and information required for the periodic diagnosis, the failure diagnosis and the failure repair are transmitted in dialogue through the display devices 912 and 922.
For a method of diagnosing the operating waveform of an industrial robot, furthermore, JP-A-7-160323 has disclosed the conventional art in which the waveform of the operation data of a robot is stored and is compared with a reference waveform to extract a feature amount. In the conventional art, to a robot controller is connected a workstation having a data file for storing the history of the operation data of a robot body in communication with the controller of the robot, a waveform feature extracting section for extracting the feature amount of the waveform of the operation data fetched in comparison with a reference waveform, a standard data creating section for creating standard data modeled from the reference waveform and the feature amount, a standard data adjusting section for adjusting the standard data corresponding to the operation data, and a waveform diagnosing section for diagnosing the waveform of the operation data while looking up a preset comment table for a waveform diagnosis in comparison of the adjusted standard data with the operation data.
However, the invention described in the JP-A-5-35751 mainly relates to a periodic diagnosis or a failure diagnosis for a machine tool to be a control object in a remote place and does not correspond to the adjustment of the control parameter of the control object present in the remote place such as the servo gain of the control object or an inherent parameter in an application.
Moreover, there is a problem in that the line of a factory is to be stopped also when the periodic diagnosis or the failure diagnosis is to be carried out or a large-sized measuring device is to be brought in.
Furthermore, an operator on the user side is to take a countermeasure in a dialogue form. In the case in which the operator is not present, therefore, a countermeasure cannot be taken and a time loss is generated so that any processing cannot be carried out during the play-back operation of the control object and the periodic diagnosis and the failure diagnosis cannot be performed automatically.
In addition, in the invention described in the JP-A-7-160323, the feature amount is extracted from the operation data of the robot in comparison with the reference waveform and the comment table for a waveform diagnosis is looked up. The extraction of the operation data and the automatic decision of the waveform thereof are simply carried out. In the same manner as in the conventional art, therefore, it is impossible to obtain such a structure that the result is reflected on the adjustment of the gain of the robot and the adjustment of the inherent parameter in the application so that the operation can be confirmed.
Moreover, the waveform of the operation data can be fetched by only a predetermined operation. For this reason, it is impossible to carry out the periodic diagnosis and the failure diagnosis during the play-back operation to be performed based on a work program created by an operator on the user side.